


Among the roots and baby's breath

by Averia



Category: Batman (Comics), Nightwing (Comics)
Genre: Court of Owls, Dick Grayson is a Talon, Family Secrets, Gen, Pre-New 52
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-30
Updated: 2020-10-30
Packaged: 2021-03-08 17:22:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,290
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27280402
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Averia/pseuds/Averia
Summary: "They call," Bruce trails off for the first time, thumb rubbing between his brows. Dick's gaze flickers to the slouched shoulders, the way Bruce is almost sinking into himself. "They call them Talons. Every Owl has one. They get taken as children."
Relationships: Dick Grayson & Bruce Wayne
Comments: 30
Kudos: 153
Collections: Batfam Halloween Week





	Among the roots and baby's breath

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by my love for the Court of Owls as an organization that is a rather intangible threat, as well as the vibe I got from _Batman: Black Mirror_ and _Gates of Gotham_.
> 
> ... that might sound as if I know what I’m doing here, but I really don’t. 😅
> 
> Title taken from Wine Red by The Hush Sound.
> 
>  **BatFam Halloween Week 30/10** : Witches | **Family Secrets** | Cult

_"Beware The Court of Owls, that watches all the time,_

_ruling Gotham from a shadowed perch behind granite and lime."_

Bruce looks at their findings but not in the cave. No, when Dick placed in front of him what the others and he found while Bruce was across the globe to establish Batman Inc., Bruce asked to be accompanied into his study instead. It leaves Dick wrongfooted in the worst possible way. He's been in Bruce's study maybe a hand full of times. Their life has always been limited to certain spaces in the manor. So much so that, sometimes, he still finds rooms he was never aware of or that he forgot about. Dick knows, if he ever told anyone, they would say it's not unusual. Dick himself knows that his childhood, or rather tweenhood home, is no normal house. The whole of the Wayne household resided in these rooms once. Their numbers are so large not even the family can fill the empty space. 

Or maybe the family could if they wanted to. Cassandra and he are living in central Gotham, Damian stays with him half of the time, Tim is more often with the Titans than with Bruce, and Jason... Jason hasn't been in the manor for a long time.

Dick recognizes his nervousness by his meandering thoughts, and he tries to concentrate on the now even though Bruce has not said a thing. His gaze flickers to the fire Alfred must have stoked before they arrived as he leans into the backrest. His fingers brush across the brown leather. Despite the fabric’s undeniable quality, the armchair is old the way everything in the study is. Or almost everything. Bruce has his chin bedded on his interlaced hands; mouth hidden behind crooked fingers as he scrutinizes the tablet that displays their findings. Sightings and half-hidden trails are all they could gather before they arrived at a dead end. No amount of backtracking has helped them so far.

Dick shifts, legs uncrossing only to cross again, and Bruce looks up at that, blue eyes faintly narrowed in concentration. It nearly draws Dick short. For a year he thought he would never see Bruce again. Not alive. Not even as a corpse.

"I want to hear it from you," Bruce says. A simple request, and yet Dick blinks at him, hesitates. He licks his lips when Bruce's sure gaze remains stuck on his face. His hand nearly comes up to rub his neck. He refrains, breathes through.

"We don't know who they are yet. Not entirely… Mostly we suspect. 

“There is an organization, one that has its roots in Gotham. One that manipulates small events to change history. Nothing uncommon considering the organizations we have come across before, only this one limits itself to Gotham. Has for what we assume to be centuries. Most of the members belong to high society, to the old families of Gotham. We even believe some of them might have ties to Wayne Enterprise."

Bruce nods, saying nothing as his gaze wanders. Dick doesn’t rush him, but it takes him by surprise when Bruce stands, and he nearly follows suit only to refrain, with his hands on the armrests, once he realizes that Bruce is walking towards the wet cabinet. A hum leaves Bruce then, and Dick watches as his fingers brush across the flasks, then still against a green wine bottle. 

A quiet, fragile kind of smile rests on Bruce's lips when dust sticks to his fingertips.

Dick’s gaze lingers on the fine particles. Alfred can't stand dust. Not in the manor. Not even in the penthouse.

Bruce returns with the bottle, his smile gone but the lines of his face still soft. The glass clinks against the desk as it is placed down. 

There is nothing to pour it into, so Dick picks it up, rotates it in his hand.

The etiquette shows a white owl sitting on a lush oak branch. Gold details glimmer among the drawn feathers. A white barn owl would be Dick’s guess. A Gotham Winery. The paper has yellowed at the edges but barely. It's a fruity and sweet red wine. Not what Dick knows Bruce's taste to be. The year tells him it's more than thirty years old, reminds him of his own age before he even gets to the fill date.

Dick trails the innocent numbers with his gaze, then he looks up at Bruce, eyebrows curling in confusion. His heartbeat thrums in his chest, a little louder the more the silence persists.

Bruce doesn't look at him, thumb brushing over his bottom lip as he stares at the dark wood of his desk. Over the years some of his writing has pushed through the papers and dented the surface. Even like that, the slopes of Bruce's words betray a simple, yet beautiful calligraphy Dick will envy to his dying breath.

"Who would ever gift you sweet wine?" Dick questions, trying to lighten the mood even as it steals his breath with curling fingers. "Have they met you?"

Bruce huffs with his whole body. Shoulders rocking. Lips twitching. Gaze sliding up. It’s over in a second, and the honest emotion stokes Dick's wariness. It only gets worse when Bruce looks up, and all Dick can see is guilt. His hand tightens around the bottle, the same way an invisible noose seems to tighten around his neck or, maybe, his heart.

"The bottle was first promised to me when I was ten," Bruce begins, slowly gathering his words. "My taste wasn't as refined yet. Not at all to be honest." Bruce smiles again as if Dick might do the same. "It was given to me by an executive of Wayne Enterprise. A longtime friend of my parents. 

"He told me about his favorite wine at his retirement party. A wine made by a Gotham manufacturer that is known, to this day, to make wine for the children of Gotham's most powerful families. He told me that I'd receive mine once it had matured enough. The grapes had already been vinified. From now on, it would develop its tastes with me.

"At ten his words seemed strange to me. Stranger still, when he talked to me about the company that would one day belong to me, but that I had no interest in, and of the high society, I was even less intrigued by.

"He was diagnosed with dementia soon after our talk. I ignored a lot of what he told me. Not least because he died mere weeks after his diagnosis.

"Only when I returned from my journey, only when I struck out as Batman, did I meet him again,” Bruce explains, gaze seemingly drawn towards the ballroom. “He was there one night. On a gala. I recognized him. He told me about Gotham once more. About the Owls and what they meant to my parents. Feathered Friends, he called them. I declined his offers, declined the wine, but the bottle appeared on my birthday inside the manor anyway.

"I still remembered what he told me as a child and what he told me that night held even more meaning, so I investigated. He and the bottle were the biggest clues I had.

"One of my investigations brought me to the circus," Bruce concludes, fingers uncurling, palms falling open as blue eyes stare at him. "To you."

Dick doesn't know what to think.

"You were twenty-two by the time you were allowed to take me in," Dick begins, remembering that day vividly. Bruce had hugged him once they had been alone, and he hadn't known how to react to such genuine care after two months of being alone. "But you were twenty-one on the day of the show. The legal age of drinking."

"I was," Bruce agrees, careful. "He was in the crowd as well."

"So, the wine," Dick swallows down the words he can't say, skin-crawling as it all comes down on him no matter how wrong it sounds, how much he wants to deny it. "What did they think you would do to me?"

"I don't know. I don't think they wanted me to do anything in particular. All that counted for them was that I'd... have you."

Even said by Bruce, the words sound chilling and wrong.

"So, a child trafficking ring?" Dick laughs because it can’t be, Bruce would never. The smile sits unevenly on his face, slides right off when Bruce’s knuckles turn white.

"Depends on the definition."

"You," Dick breaths out but can't say the words, doesn't know how or even what to say. The noose doesn't feel like rope anymore. "You've known about them for years. And you never did anything?"

Bruce breathes in but seems to deflate far too soon. His fingers twitch as if he wants to raise them to his face, hide behind them.

Dick's grip tenses around the bottle, all his muscles coiled. "Talk to me," he whispers, sound harsh.

"They call," Bruce trails off for the first time, thumb rubbing between his brows. Dick's gaze flickers to the slouched shoulders, the way Bruce is almost sinking into himself. "They call them Talons. Every Owl has one. They get taken as children."

 _They get taken as children_ , Dick thinks, numbly, words repeating endlessly like a roar in his ears. "And I was supposed to be yours." The words chill him like a layer of snow across his skin, cross his lips like splinters of ice.

"Yes," Bruce says, frowning, watching in a way Dick isn’t used to. "I think they let me find you. Subtle, you said it yourself. I didn't know a lot back then. I didn't know what the wine meant. Only when I saw your parents fall and you live did I realize who their Talons are."

"That's why you took me in?" Dick asks desperation bleeding into his voice.

"You were a child," Bruce says, slipping into his Batman voice, barricading himself from any criticism. "You didn't deserve to be alone. That's why I took you in."

Dick swallows, but his breathing doesn't calm down. It layers everything differently, a shadow over their interactions. "Is that why you adopted me so late? Because I was just--" his gaze sticks to the bottle that seems to burn in his grasp, _a thing._

"Dick, no--" 

"If I had killed Zucco, would you have given up on me?” Dick hisses, bottle near cracking against the desk as his heartbeat skyrockets, and a shudder shakes his frame. “Would they have left me alone? Would they have killed me, or would they have taken me? Given me to someone else?!" 

Bruce's eyes gentle, hand reaching out for him, and Dick pulls away, takes a step back before he even knows how he got out of the armchair.

"Is that why it was always so easy for you to hurt me and throw me out of your life?"

"Dick,” Bruce says, eyes betraying his helplessness.

He takes another step back.

All those times Bruce punched him, left him, fired him… All those times Alfred called him Bruce's optimism. His compassion. A part of Bruce. It put so much weight on his shoulder, but he appreciated it. He wanted to be there for Bruce even when Bruce didn't want him. He’s always wanted to be there.

"When," Dick swallows. The handle of the door digs into his back. Bruce steps nearer, eying him as if he is a skittish animal. _When did you start to think of me as a child? Instead of a soldier made for you, designed for you, given to you. A weapon for your crusade._

"Dick," Bruce says slowly, palms up as he steps nearer. Hands gently settle onto his shoulders. "I'm sorry. I never... I didn't know how to tell you. I thought...," Bruce trails off again, blue eyes sad as they gaze into his, and Dick trembles beneath his grasp.

"Alfred knows too," Dick presses out, "Doesn't he?"

Bruce averts his gaze. It answers enough.

Dick lets out a laugh, pushing the hands away. Bruce doesn't resist.

"I have to... I need to," Dick shakes his head. "I'll be with my League for a while," he breaths out, hand running through his hair. It shakes. 

A headache is forming right behind his eyes.

"I understand," Bruce murmurs. The sadness in his eyes pulls at Dick’s heart and yet all he can feel is relief when Bruce steps back. The feeling only lasts for a moment. Dick’s attention gets caught by the wine once more. It sits so innocently atop the mahogany desk. Slowly, his hand sinks, gaze ever drawn to the glimmering owl. All he has to do is twist the doorknob and leave.

He doesn’t grasp for it.

"Why did you keep it?" Dick asks, hushed, a foreboding feeling creeping into his mind. "Why keep the bottle?"

“Because” – And Bruce’s lips move in a pattern he has seen before, countless times, yet he hears no word, can only lean there against the sturdy door, mesmerized and growing pliant.

Happiness blooms in his chest. A tight ball slowly expanding. Because Bruce has never let him go.

Fingers trail across his cheek, cup his chin. His vision swims, eyes half-lidded, but the brilliant blue eyes are a familiar sight. Sad to the last drop of blue. It pains him to see such sorrow, and he melts between the strong arms, sinking into the embrace, his mouth pressed to his master’s shoulder. Fingers run through his hair, lips settle to his temple as they speak, hushed.

“Forget for me.”

And Talon does.

_"Be cautious of The Knight, that appraises all your crimes,_

_reigning over Gotham from a shadowed perch where no sound ever chimes."_


End file.
